More or less like any strong friendship, I think. The difference would be a sense of duty, because family has a strong meaning in most societies, and also a sense of being unable to get rid of the person. Friendships can be broken off, familial relations can't really. So you feel like it's a duty and also a necessity to maintain the relationship. You also have a lot of history, and understand things that outsiders wouldn't. Also, if there is anything stigmatized or bad or weird that one of them is involved with, the siblings are pretty likely to know, so there's a sense of carelessness--you don't have to worry about doing something stupid in front of them, because they already know you're stupid. Basically I think a combination of duty, carelessness, and inevitability. Obviously you have to add in the aspects of "close friendship" to the mix, but I think those three are the sibling-specific characteristics.
On the flipside, that sense of duty and so on can feel like a burden if you don't have a good relationship. People can shut themselves off from family for that reason. But you didn't ask about that.
